What do you do with your photos?

I think I’ve said it before, photos are my memories. They are my way of keeping records, my souvenirs from vacations, and my gift to myself on birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays. Looking back through our photo albums floods me with recollections of both the special and the ordinary moments of our life. The way I felt at the time, the conversations we had, the smells, the music, the food - all of that is somehow frozen within a photograph.

Once of my commitments as a professional photographer is to encourage my clients to share their photos freely. Many photographers shoot photos and then include only a handful of images to clients to keep - unless, of course, they want to pay an arm and a leg to buy all of the digital images. As a photographer, as a mother, and as someone who loves photos, I am not a fan of this way of business. My session fee always includes a CD of the finished images for personal use. No additional fees to me, no strings attached. The truth is, I personally wouldn’t go to a photographer that doesn’t allow me to keep my digital negatives. The way I see it, these are my memories and I believe they are mine to keep. My photo business is built on this idea.

Do you have a blog or a web page? Share on Facebook? Frame every favorite? Are you a scrapbooker or do you prefer traditional albums? Do you simply save your photos and plan to sort them out once your children are grown and you have more time to reflect on the moments & memories?

Honestly, I do a little bit of all of the above. I save almost every photo I take. I have a family blog where I share most of the details of our day-to-day adventures. From there, I place my favorites in a very simple scrapbook. And the best also get shared on Facebook.

How about you? Where do your photos end up?